Eliot Greenwald’s first solo exhibition in France, Ring the Cookhouse Bell also marks a new milestone in the work of this remarkable and widely acclaimed American artist.

In our era of “breaking news,” social media feeds and networks that are upending media, information, and even human relationships… At the very moment when digital fabrication seems more authentic than reality… As images no longer serve as proof, and as most of these phenomena were born in the United States, it is this American artist — with his hands, on paper, wood or canvas, using oil crayon, ink or acrylic paint — who describes for us the absurdity of a world dreamed up for us, by others.

Eliot Greenwald’s dreamlike images do not lecture us, they do not seek to overwhelm us, but they “ring the cookhouse bell”: a very real signal aimed at ears, in order to satisfy stomachs. The essential remains organic, and we have reached a surrealist moment where that needs to be said out loud.

Before our eyes, Greenwald reveals the true face of the global village: populated by individuals whose rough edges lie buried behind their public images — images they would prefer to be singular, exemplary and remarkable, when in fact they are nothing more than mirrors bouncing off one another.

This is the meaning of those more or less identical, more or less distant houses, whose interiors we never glimpse and which we can only imagine as inhabited, thanks to the grace of smoke rising from a chimney. These houses are the surface of the people who live in them — the image we choose to project of ourselves.

The smoke escaping from them is our proof of life: the Mona Lisa behind us in a selfie, quickly followed by the Eiffel Tower behind us in a selfie; the Leaning Tower of Pisa we pretend to push with a finger; that kitten that moved us so deeply; that plate of food held sacred before it has even been tasted. This white smoke is everything we believe makes us remarkable, when in fact…

And yet, looking closely, all that identical smoke amounts to continuous signals drifting only where the algorithmic wind carries them, dispersing before they are ever received.

This is what Eliot Greenwald invites us to reflect upon — with enthusiasm — reminding us of the almost physical pleasure of painting and the joy of colour. He understands this world he does not understand, is troubled by it and amused by it, which is why discovering his work feels urgent. One might almost venture that if Bruegel the Elder were to depict today’s world, there is a good chance it would look a great deal like Eliot Greenwald’s.